Miles writes
>You mean that a house with a mortgage payment of $6000/month would only
>rent for $1500/month? If so, why on earth do people buy houses in SF?
>You can live in a much nicer place for much less money if you rent.
>Does the mantra of "home ownership" drown out all rational analysis?
>
Well, I think that the house buying in the Bay area has been mainly of
three types:
1. Moving from one house into another. Upgrading. 2. Speculative buying because of continuous and explosive rise in prices 3. Subprime stretching -- buying a lot more house than you can afford and not understanding the byzantine financial arrangements you have signed up for.
And, I assume, people buy houses because that's all that the "American Dream" has amounted to since WWII -- with a brief detour in the 60's.
Joanna